| No less a spiritual giant than Oswald Chambers, author | | | | must despise all of this." How indeed. |
| of the classic book My Utmost for His Highest, | | | | Oswald Chambers spent four intense years seeking |
| commented on his own spiritual journey, "I did not know | | | | God. Often today people want to find him, give him |
| anyone who had what I wanted. In fact, I didn't know | | | | their requests, quickly walk away without changing a |
| what I wanted. But I knew that if what I had was all | | | | thing, and call it a spiritual experience all in the course of |
| there was to Christianity, the thing was a fraud or I had | | | | an hour. |
| not gotten hold of the right end of the stick." | | | | On the other hand, if you want more than that, if you |
| Chambers was more straightforward than most | | | | want total transformation, you are in good company. |
| people. But today any honest person would have to | | | | You are in fact well on your way to laying hold of |
| admit that much of the shallow teaching that passes | | | | what Francis Shaffer called "total truth." |
| for faith in our culture is a mile wide and an inch deep. | | | | Total truth is living in the light of an honest relationship |
| Yet the Bible speaks in words of life transformation. In | | | | with God that begins when we follow the command, |
| fact, when the Apostle Paul describes this change in | | | | "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with |
| his book to the church in Rome, he uses the same | | | | all your soul and with all your strength and with all your |
| word we use today to describe the metamorphosis of | | | | mind" (Luke 10:27). This is no religious offering; it is |
| a butterfly. In short, the change that faith makes in us is | | | | rather a complete immersion in following after his |
| to create a completely different person than we were | | | | footsteps that ends in a total metamorphosis of our life |
| before. | | | | and character. |
| Several years ago A.W. Tozer noted the superficiality | | | | So what is the first step? It is simple honesty that |
| of much that is taught in the name of God when he | | | | declares you will no longer settle for shadows but only |
| noted, "There is a false gospel which asserts, 'Come | | | | for the substance. It comes with truly believing that, |
| with your basket to receive the religious equivalent of | | | | "You will seek me and find me when you seek me |
| everything the world offers and enjoy it to the limit. | | | | with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13). When that |
| Those who have not accepted Christ must be content | | | | happens, of one thing we can be sure; we will be |
| with this world, but the Christian gets this one with the | | | | transformed, others will know it, and we will be certain |
| one to come thrown in as a bonus.' How the Lord | | | | that we have gotten hold of the right end of the stick. |